“Syria’s main Western-backed opposition group on Wednesday denied Russian accusations that rebels had manufactured sarin nerve gas and used it in a chemical attack outside Aleppo in March. Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin on Tuesday said Russian scientific analysis strongly indicated a projectile containing sarin that hit Khan al-Assal on March 19, killing 26 civilians and military personnel, was fired by rebels. But the Syrian National Coalition said the charges from Moscow, a key ally and arms supplier to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, were “desperate” and “fabricated”. “The Free Syrian Army strongly condemns all usage of chemical weapons against a civilian population and denies Russia’s allegations about the FSA using chemical weapons in Khan al-Assal, Aleppo,” Khalid Saleh, a spokesman for the coalition, said in a statement……………..”

Damn confusing, although to be expected. Western powers (mainly Britain and France) claim the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons in the civil war. Russia claims the Syrian opposition militias have used chemical weapons.
These claims and suspicions are common in the region:

• Benjamin Netanyahu (of Israel and Palestine) probably believes the Iranians are using chemical weapons all over the world. He would like to convince everybody else of that.
• Some Egyptian shaikhs (and a few others) probably believe the Israelis are using some special kind of special undetectable chemical weapons that weakens the male drive and reduces the fertility rate.
  
• Some Turks claim local Jews are behind the popular uprising in Istanbul and other cities (I think it is just Turks who are bored stiff with seeing Mr. Erdogan on television every day).
  
• The Iranian mullahs believe that almost everybody in the Middle East yearns for a theocracy like theirs. They believe the West (mainly the British for some reason) is conspiring to keep the rest from discovering the joys of Islamic theocracy.
• The Saudi princes pretend everyone everywhere loves them for who they are and not for how much they spend. Some probably believe that they could get elected to their current offices if they have to run (or stand if they were British) for office.
  
• The Bahrain shaikhs believe that tough love, real tear gas and torture and bullets and sexual assault, will teach their people to love them, or to grow up and behave like Saudis do.
• The Syrians, some of them, pretend to believe the Saudi princes and Qatari shaikhs and Lebanese warlords and North Africans Wahhabis are dying to show them the joys of democracy and the freedom of expression.
  
• The Omanis, well, the Omanis seem like they wish they could lease their whole country and move everybody to faraway a place between Austria and Switzerland. Or maybe they can lease Zanzibar again……………

Cheers
mhg